I was driving along Vine Street in Holywood last night when Terry Gross' "Fresh Air" radio show came on KPPC. This is such a good show that I often find myself sitting in the car for as long as a half hour if I arrive home when she's in the middle of a good interview. Last night she interviewed Wes Anderson about his new film, "The Darjeeling Limited" which stars his close friend Owen Wilson along with Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzman (pictured above).
I wondered if they would discuss Owen's recent suicide attempt and when Terry delcately broached the subject, I turned on my tape recorder and caught the following bit for ya:
Gross: [Wilson's] head is bandaged and banged up through the movie because his character has been in a motorcycle accident and the accident could be a suicide. Did you write this for him knowing that he had that possibility within him?
Anderson: Oh no, not in any way. Of course not. ...I don't want to speak for Owen, you'll have an interview with him and he'll just speak for himself much better than I can...It comes from my fascination and has something to do with me which I couldn't even begin to explain. It doesn't have anything to do with Owen.
Gross: You are an old friend of Owen Wilson's, you went to college together and lived with him for years, what do you like about working with him as an actor?
Anderson: " Owen, we're best friends, we're peers and at the same time, in a way, i sort of think of Owen in some ways, i don't want to be too generous to him, but he's a bit mentorish to me. We've learned a lot from each other over the years but right from the beginning, he had experience that I hadn't. ..He's very funny, he's one of the funniest guys i ever met."
Gross later expressed her sympathy to Anderson that someone so close to him had attempted suicide and asked whether he thought Wilson would act again.
Anderson: Of course...I think there's a great deal of information which I'm not gonna clear up because I think it's better if he just clears it up himself. But being close to death is not an accurate description of what he experienced. I talk to him all the time, I was with him very recently. He's following what's going on with our movie. We have to really promote this and he can't be a part of that right now but we'll be seeing lots more work from him in the future."